Prison labour shames Ikea

Ikea has become a retail byword for affordable, functional furniture - plain, cheerful items that millions of consumers the world over can't seem to resist.

But Ikea has become associated with something darker after admitting that at least some of its cupboards, chairs and other household products were produced by East German political prisoners.

A roomful of former prisoners watched - and then started to vent decades of anger - as the head of Ikea Germany, Peter Betzel, formally apologised for using prison labour in the 1970s and 1980s.

''We regret wholeheartedly that this happened,'' Mr Betzel said after the auditors Ernst and Young confirmed that Ikea managers knew of the practice. ''It is not, and never was, acceptable to Ikea that it should be selling products made by political prisoners and I would like to express my deepest regret for this to the victims and their families.''

Ikea insists that nothing comparable goes on today. But already questions of compensation are being raised that could cost the company dearly, not to mention the damage to its reputation in being seen to profit from people fighting for freedom.

Alexander Arnold was sent to prison at 22 for ''distributing anti-communist propaganda'' - handing out flyers containing poems by Bertolt Brecht and Hermann Hesse. He says he still has nightmares about the isolation cell where he was sent if he failed to keep up with the heavy workload.

Mr Arnold, now 51, made parts for office chairs. ''By the end of my 11-month sentence I knew every part of the process, from the rollers on the feet to the spine of the chair.''

He was also well aware that he and his fellow prisoners were working for Ikea. ''It was no secret. Their name was on the boxes which the products were packed into. I'm glad that Ikea is taking responsibility but I'm sorry it took someone other than Ikea to bring this to light.''

The Ernst and Young report said that while Ikea had had a policy of visiting production facilities to control working processes, access to East German suppliers had been restricted.

Dieter Ott, 49, a former prisoner from Naumburg who worked on a punch press making parts for Ikea cupboards and doors, asked why Ikea had not questioned why it was not allowed to visit workers.

''Did you not suspect something? And after all, you were working with a country that was separated from Sweden by a hulking great wall,'' Mr Ott said.

Mr Betzel said the company now had a strict system of checks and balances in place since 2000 and carried out more than 1000 control checks every year.